From a cozy series, we turn to a gritty, hardboiled series by Philip Kerr. Bernhard Guenther looks for people. More precisely, he tries to find out what happened to people, for he lives in perilous times, 1936 Berlin, and more often than not there are no answers, much less good ones. Nazis, the Gestapo and the SS are everywhere and usually behind the disappearances, so Bernie must tread carefully lest he come under the suspicious eye of a member of law enforcement. This is not always easy to do because he must ask questions to find answers. In the first volume of the series, Bernie is ‘requested’ to come to the aid of the owner of one of pre-war Germany’s largest steel mills. Herr Six, the owner, is looking for jewels, or is he? He claims a valuable necklace was stolen from his daughter and son-in-law’s home after they were murdered and the home set ablaze to cover up the deed. As Bernie gets deeper into the case he finds more questions than answers, some from top-ranking officials.

Philip Kerr recreates an extremely realistic Germany under the Third Reich. Once a woman married, she was expected to stay home and take care of the family. This also helped with unemployment. Another program to keep people off welfare was the building of the autobahns. Pay was minimal, but men were working, and the autobahns were strategic to the Nazis, since they were built to allow armies and their equipment access to countries such as Czechoslovakia which was invaded a few years later. At this point Jews were not the only people sent to KZs, concentration camps. Homosexuals and Communists were sent there as well. In fact, Bernie remarked about one man who was all three that his luck hadn’t run out so much as hopped on a motorcycle and fled. In the midst of this were the 1936 Olympics and Jesse Owens.

This is one of those series that I’d run into every so often and finally read the first in the series. I highly recommend it to readers of hard-boiled and noirish mysteries as well as fans of historical mysteries. In the meantime, I’ve requested the second title on audio and anxiously await its arrival. Philip Kerr, by the way, has written a variety of thrillers as well as a series, Children of the Lamp for middle-school-aged kids. He lives in Scotland.

Published by Viking

March Violets, 1989
The Pale Criminal, 1990
A German Requiem, 1991

Published by Penguin Books

Berlin Noir, 1993 compiles the 1st 3 titles

Published by G P Putnam’s Sons

The One from the Other, 2006
A Quiet Flame, 2009